hms iron duke

Tuesday, 28 February 2017

Alphen, Netherlands. 28
February. For understandable reasons the Allied narrative of the 1939-45 naval
war tend to be dominated by the Royal Navy in the Atlantic and the
Mediterranean, and the United States Navy in the Pacific. However, seventy-five
years ago this week, and some three months after the December 7th,
1941 attack of the Imperial Japanese Navy on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl
Harbor, and the December 10th sinking of the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the
battlecruiser HMS Repulse, the Battle
of the Java Sea took place. This battle highlights the sacrifice of other Allies
during World War Two, in this case the officers and men of the Royal
Netherlands Navy.

The
Australian-American-British-Dutch Strike Force (otherwise known as ABDACOM or the
Eastern Strike Force), under the command of the Rear Admiral Karel Doorman, had
sailed to intercept a Japanese invasion force en route to what was then the
Netherlands East Indies. The battle
began on 27 February when a force of the Imperial Japanese Navy, supported by land-based
air power, intercepted the Allied force.

At the time this was the
greatest sea battle since the epic 1916 Battle of Jutland between the Royal Navy
and the Imperial German Navy. The Allied force was routed. During the course of
the three day action the Allied force lost two light cruisers (HMNLS de Ruyter (flagship) and HMNLS Java) and three destroyers. Rear Admiral (Schout-bij-nacht) Doorman and
some 2300 sailors were also lost. The
Japanese suffered damage to one destroyer with the loss of 38 sailors killed.

During the battle the
British ‘8-inch’ heavy cruiser HMS Exeter
was badly damaged by a shell that exploded in her boiler room. Three years
earlier at the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939 HMS Exeter had inflicted serious damage on the German
pocket-battleship and commerce raider Graf
Spee. Then Commodore Harwood’s small force of HMS Exeter and two light cruisers (HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles
(of the New Zealand Division) had forced Kapitain sur zee Hans Langsdorrf to
seek sanctuary in neutral Montevideo, Faced by what he thought was an
overwhelming Royal Navy force waiting for him to leave Langsdorrf chose to
scuttle the Graf Spee rather than
engage in what he thought would have been suicide. The British were bluffing.

After the Battle of Java
Sea the badly damaged HMS Exeter had retreated to what was then called Ceylon,
and today Sri Lanka. After emergency repairs Exeter tried to sail for Australia for repairs escorted by two
destroyers, HMS Encounter and the USS Pope. On 1 March, in what became
known as the Second Battle of the Java Sea, all three Allied ships were sunk
with over 800 British sailors taken captive by the Japanese. That same day the
heavy cruiser USS Houston and the
Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth, together
with the Dutch destroyer HMNLS Evertsen,
all three of which had taken part in Battle of the Java Sea, were sunk by the
Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of the Sunda Strait with over one thousand
Allied sailors killed.

The defeat enabled the Imperial
Japanese Army to invade what is today Indonesia and marked the effective end of
the Dutch far eastern empire. The battle also took place in what has become
known as Yamamoto’s Year. The Fleet Commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy,
Admiral Isokuru Yamamoto had told His Majesty Emperor Hirohito shortly before
Pearl Harbor that his forces could play havoc with those of the Allies for about
a year, but after that he could offer the Emperor no guarantees of success.

He was right. After the
initial shock the United States rapidly organised its immense industrial
potential into the greatest war machine the world had ever seen. The Battle of
Java Sea took place right in the middle of Yamamoto’s Year when the Allies were
only beginning to properly organise, and between Pearl Harbor and the decisive
US naval victory at the Battle of Midway, 4-7 June, 1942.

Both in the Atlantic and
the Pacific the officers and men of the Royal Netherlands Navy served with
distinction even when the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi forces. The bonds
forged between the Royal Navy, the US Navy and the Royal Netherlands Navy
between 1939 and 1945 remain strong today within the framework of the Atlantic
Alliance. It has been my honour in the past to spend time on the ships of the
Royal Netherlands Navy, a force that does a country that I now call home proud.

There is a post-script to
the Battle of the Java Sea. In November 2016 during the making of a television
documentary about the battle it was discovered that between 2002 and 2016 six
of the wrecks of the Allied ships had either been illegally scavenged or
removed completely from the sea floor by scrap metal merchants, most likely
from Indonesia. Somewhere in the Mediterranean the remains of my great uncle
Walter lie interred in the shattered remains of a sunken British warship. The
sanctity of his final resting place matters to me. War graves should be
respected, but sadly too often they are not. The Australian, British, Dutch,
and US governments have protested to Indonesia, but little more will be done to
preserve such sites.

In honour of the officers
and men of the Royal Netherlands Navy who sacrificed their lives during the
epic struggle of 1939-1945.

Friday, 24 February 2017

“We
can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to
be done”.

Alan
Turing

Alphen, Netherlands, 24
February. Alan Turing is the father of the computer. He also established the
Turing Test. To pass the test a machine would need to fool a human that it was
in fact another human; the imitation game.
His idea of a ‘thinking machine’ was designed to free humans to think more
widely, more accurately, and above all more laterally to enable intelligent humans
to do what they do best; understand complexity through analysis, knowledge and
instinct. To Turing the purpose of ‘thinking machines’ was to crunch immense and
complex series of data to establish accurate patterns which humans could then
act upon.

It has been a funny old
week. A moment of profound strategic importance to the transatlantic relationship
took place and yet passed with barely more than a comment. A German Chancellor
effectively told an American President that in spite of being the leader of a
country full of citizens that had grown rich under the armed protection of the
citizens of another country and at great cost to the latter over many years,
she was in fact thinking about reneging on a formal NATO commitment that her
taxpayers would spend roughly half the amount the latter’s taxpayers pay for the
security and defence of her own country. Even though political reality is being
warped in Germany by September’s federal elections the rejection of President
Trump’s perfectly reasonable call for Germany and other Europeans to fully
commit to spend 2% GDP on defence represents a real threat to the future of
NATO and the transatlantic relationship.

My own week has been
spent drafting a major high-level report into the strategic adaptation of NATO.
As I was drafting this report I was struck by the growing
strategic-philosophical divide within the Alliance. This split brings me back
to Alan Turing’s genius. Turing’s aim was to transform complexity into clarity
upon which sound decisions of policy and strategy could then be made. Turing’s
work on “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” was an extension of his work on
the famous ‘Bombe’; the pioneering computer Turing built at Bletchley Park during
World War Two which helped to break the German “Shark” naval code. Turing, the
Bombe and the Bletchley code-breakers played a crucial role in helping the
Allies defeat the U-boats during the critical Battle of the Atlantic, a battle
which Churchill said was the only one that really frightened him.

My sense is that the West’s
leaders are today in a pretty similar position to Churchill and other Allied
leaders in the early years of World War Two; grasping around to properly
understand what is happening and in the absence of any real understanding
profoundly unsure about what if any action to take, or investments to make. The
situation is made worse by the huge number of think tanks and university
departments that have proliferated over recent years, particularly in Europe,
and which add little real strategic value. Too often universities refuse to
undertake hard analysis of events and processes for fear it offends
reality-bending political correctness. Too often think tanks in search of money
stop thinking and simply tell power what it wants to hear, or retreat into a parochial,
partisan agenda-pumping that offers leaders no chance to understand and thus little
rationale to act.

The result is what passes
for security and defence policy in Europe today; powerful institutions such as
states, the EU and NATO that taken together COULD be adapted to both understand
and the meet the risks, challenges and threats of the twenty-first century if
properly organised and co-ordinated. However, precisely because there is no
real understanding about the nature of threats and thus agreement what to do
about them, these same states and institutions look ever more out of sync with
the missions with which they are charged; the twenty-first century security and
defence, protection and projection of the West’s citizens. In the absence of
understanding the preservation of the institution becomes more important than
the efficient and/or effective application of those institutions (which are
means not ends) in pursuit of their respective missions.

What is needed is a new ‘Bombe’
that could help identify the patterns and linkages inherent to complex,
globalised insecurity; between emerging state threats, global-reach terrorism
and criminality, the emergence of mass disruptive and mass destructive
technologies, how to understand them, and above offer critical paths to predict,
adapt, stop, cope, and recover. In other words a new kind of transformative imitation
game is needed if the West, of which Europe will always be a part, is to be
secured. Or, to put it another way, a thinking policy and strategy ‘machine’
full of brilliant people charged with ‘computing’ the many threats faced by the
citizens of Atlanticism and freed to make any recommendation the evidence
suggests to leaders.

The road-block? The lack
of transformative thinking at the elite, establishment level. Unfortunately, only
the shock of disaster or war is likely to shake our leaders out of their politics
before strategy torpor. Worse, most establishment careers are not built by
speaking truth to power, and those of us who try to speak truth to power are by
definition outside the establishment and can thus be dismissed as cranks when
sound strategic analysis clashes with political expediency. It is precisely that
clash which explains the mess the all-powerful West is in, and why our citizens
feel far less secure and far more uncertain than they should be. It is
precisely this clash which explains why the short-term and reaction reigns
supreme over the long-term and the strategic.

Merkel’s side-stepping of
Trump’s demand to ‘show me the money’ over NATO is thus in fact about far
deeper issues than defence investment, burden-sharing, and the need for Europe
to get its collective or common act together over defence. What we need is a new
kind of security imitation game but what Chancellor Merkel revealed this week
is that all we are likely to get is more of the limitation game.

Tuesday, 21 February 2017

Alphen, Netherlands. 21
February. President Harry S. Truman once said, “A president needs political
understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it”. Watching
Month One of the Trump presidency splutter like an old car trying to start in
the fourth gear I could not but help think of Truman’s wise words. However, a
president can also learn. That was my first reaction to the overnight news that
Lieutenant-General H.R. McMaster had been appointed (and accepted) the position
of National Security Advisor. On Friday I asked, “What’s the plan, Mr President”.
If McMaster is given due respect and his office the appropriate weight that is
precisely what I now expect.

Who is H.R. McMaster? He
is first and foremost an officer-scholar. Indeed, in some ways he was my vision
and inspiration when I pioneered the idea of the officer-scholar at the
Netherlands Defence Academy some years ago. However, he is not simply a great
thinker, he has also been a real commander and leader. He was a successful tank
commander who also understands the art and science of counterinsurgency
operations (COIN). In other words, McMaster properly understands the vital relationship
between soft and hard power and that the application of one without the other in
campaign design is simply a recipe for failure.

Since the end of World War
Two the US has supported its allies and confronted and contested peer
competitors the world-over. To that end, McMaster is a disciple of General
David Petraeus for whom he worked, and like his former boss believes that the
use of hard power must have very clear political objectives and a proper
understanding of where and how to apply it in any given circumstance BEFORE it
is unleashed. Given that Petraeus is close to Secretary of Defense James Mattis
it is reasonable to assume that the McMaster appointment marks a return to a
more traditional concept of American power and its use. With Tillerson at State, Mattis at Defense,
and now McMaster at the National Security Council President Trump’s foreign and
security policy team would grace any internationalist, Realist Republican administration.

McMaster will also face a
coterie of challenges. First, he needs to re-establish the NSC at the core of
US foreign and security policy-making. For some time now the NSC has been
marginalised. Second. McMaster needs to get the CIA, State Department, the Department
of Defense, and the many other security and defence agencies that litter
Washington working with the White House…and each other. Third, and by no means
last, McMaster will need to come to terms with Trump confidante Steve Bannon,
who is both on the NSC and enjoys the same status as the National Security Advisor.
Bannon is also running what looks to all intents and purposes like a kind of
shadow NSC within the White House. Given Bannon’s undoubted sway it will be
interesting to see to just how far McMaster is permitted to build his own team,
as he has apparently been promised.

McMaster has much to
offer and his appointment will reassure Allies the world-over, both in Europe
and Asia-Pacific. However, the Allies must not think this appointment marks the
beginning of a return to business as before. The simple truth is that the US no
longer enjoys the power supremacy it has done for most of the post-World War
Two period. The Obama Administration was a kind of strategic intermission.

The sheer hard equations
of power mean the Allies will need to do far more to keep Washington strong
enough to ensure that America’s ultimate security guarantee to them remains
credible. Sadly, listening to both Chancellor Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker
these past few days suggest that Europe’s theoretical soft power should somehow
be seen as burden-sharing, or as an alternative to real defence investment,
worries me. To my mind such laxness shows
that they really do not understand the nature of change in this world, or the
reality of power.

The appointment of McMaster
is quite simply brilliant and President Trump must be congratulated. Given the
chance McMaster will help set course for a return to the balanced application
of American spread across defence, deterrence, dialogue, and diplomacy. Nor
will he be afraid to speak truth to power. His first book Dereliction of Duty excoriated the Vietnam-era Joint Chiefs for
their failure to do precisely that. A failing I have seen repeated time and
again during the West’s recent disastrous campaigns, and which in part inspired
me to write these blogs.

There will doubtless come
a crunch point. Sooner rather than later McMaster will need to speak truth to
Steven Bannon, and quite possibly President Trump. And if he is to survive and prosper
in the White House bear-pit McMaster will also need all of his considerable
skills of persuasion, persistence, and perspicacity. For, as Winston Churchill
once said, “Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way
they look forward to the trip”.

So, General, let’s get
down to business. There is a lot for us all to do together.

Friday, 17 February 2017

“Nearly all men can
stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power”.

Abraham Lincoln

Alphen, Netherlands. 17 February.
Today both Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of Defense James Mattis will
address the Munich Security Conference. After yesterday’s sprawling
presidential press conference what I am looking for is clarity from the new
Administration over the future direction of US foreign and security policy. Like
many Europeans who are not part of the Munch-esque anti-Trump hysteriocracy I nevertheless
find myself increasingly confused by President Trump’s idiosyncratic and oft
inconsistent utterances.

Speaker Tip O’Neil one famously
said that all politics are local. In fact, for an American president all
politics are global. President Trump said last night that he had inherited a “mess”
from the Obama administration. OK. Mr President, what are you actually going to do about it? For example, when is
the Administration going to appoint a Deputy National Security Adviser and a
Deputy Secretary of Defense? ‘Deputies’, I hear you say? Why does this matter? Surely,
it would first be nice to have a National Security Adviser properly in place. Under
the American system it is the so-called “Committee of Deputies” that generates
policy and thrashes it around, before kicking it upstairs to Cabinet and the
President for decision. As yet there are huge holes in the US foreign and
security policy security policy apparatus. Result? The Allies are at best
confused, and America patently unsure.

One of the many weaknesses of the
Obama administration was that it had no discernible foreign and security
doctrine, and thus no guiding principles that established consistency and reinforced ‘red lines’ to both Allies and adversaries alike. Equally,
President Obama also avoided shooting from the policy hip, which is precisely
what President Trump did this week with his ‘one-state/two-state’ hip-hop,
which no doubt left the Israelis and the Palestinians as confused as I was. Worse,
President Trump seems to say one thing one day, only for Secretary of State
Tillerson and the other Principals to say something quite different the next
day (possibly even the same day). ‘Clarification’ it ain’t!

What I need now is some semblance
of policy substance that goes far beyond the President simply saying he is
going to ‘fix things’. For example, beyond getting the Allies to spend more on
defence what does the Trump administration actually expect from NATO? What
future relationship does Washington foresee with an EU that is about to be
changed profoundly with the departure of its second biggest economy and
strongest military power? Brexit will change the shape not just of the EU, but
of the wider West, with implications also for the Asia-Pacific region's ‘Western’ powers.

What will be the main pillars of
US policy to the Middle East and North Africa? What about Iran? What about North
Korea? Critically, what will US policy be towards China under the Trump administration?
There are also a whole host of other policy areas which are awaiting some sense
of settled US policy. These range from the Administration’s attitude to multilateral
institutions, such as the UN, arms control, climate change et al. As for Russia
my sources tell me that Moscow is as confused as I am. Now, keeping the Kremlin
politically off-balance is probably no bad thing, but only if such a stratagem is
a function of strategy. Right now, Washington is keeping us all off-balance.

Above all, the Allies need some
sense that the Administration is beginning to get a grip of what will be enormous
foreign and security policy challenges over the next four years. A big set-piece
speech from President Trump would be useful to lay out systematically the
Administration’s foreign and security policy goals. The speech would need to show that President Trump recognises that he is
not just the head of state and government of the United States, he is also leader
of the Free World.

As a citizen of the Free World,
and a proud friend and ally on the United States, I want America to lead. However,
I need to be convinced the Administration is up to the challenge of leadership.
Consequently, I expect the focus now to be on policy, strategy and
responsibility. If America does not want to lead then please tell me so that my
country and I can make other arrangements.

To conclude, President Trump is absolutely
right to tell the European allies to stop free-riding on the US and to spend more
on defence. Europe’s strategic pretence has gone on for far too long. However,
in return the Allies want and have the right to expect that the White House get
its strategic act together and quickly. Perhaps what Vice-President Pence and
Secretary of Defense Mattis will say today will show just that. Let’s hope so.

Tuesday, 14 February 2017

“For when they see the people swarm into the streets, and daily
wet to the skin with rain; and yet cannot persuade them to go out of the rain,
they do keep themselves within their houses, seeing they cannot remedy the
folly of the people”.

Sir Thomas More, 1478-1535

Alphen,
Netherlands. 14 February. There are two places European politicians should
never go; Nostalgia and Utopia. Last week a survey of European public opinion
published by the British think-tank Chatham
House revealed a deep and dangerous gulf between Europe’s peoples and its
liberal elites over Muslim immigration. The gulf is so profound that there are geopolitical
as well as societal implications. The
survey also implies that far from rejecting President Trump’s temporary travel
ban on seven majority Muslim countries to the US, a majority of Europeans not
only agree with it, but would like to see a stricter version of the ban imposed
in Europe.

The survey: ten
thousand people in ten European countries were asked to respond to the
statement; “All further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be
stopped”. The respondents were then asked to what extent do they agree or
disagree with this statement. 55% agreed with the statement across all ten
countries, 20% disagreed, whilst 25% neither agreed nor disagreed. In Poland
71% agreed with the statement, whilst in Austria 65% also agreed, along with
53% in Germany, 51% in Italy, and 47% in the UK. In other words, across Europe
some 80% of Europeans want migration from Muslim countries either stopped, have
concerns about such migrations, or have not formed a view. The latter must be
idiots.

What are the geopolitical
implications? Uncomfortable though it may be the survey suggests that the
strategies of Al Qaeda and Islamic State may be in part succeeding.
The call for a blanket ban on all Muslims into Europe implied by this survey
suggests that huge numbers of Europeans see Muslims as some form of Fifth
Column or Trojan horse; a kind of reverse Crusade (which runs deep in European
culture). Such mass popular mistrust will certainly makes it harder for
European states to co-operate with vital Muslim-majority states, such as Turkey
and the Gulf States, and could fuel a reaction, particularly in the Middle
East. Any such loss of co-operation in the campaign against terrorism can only
benefit the terrorists. After all, Europe is engaged with its partners in what is
a systemic struggle between the state and the anti-state across much of the
Middle East, North Africa and south, central Asia.

Such mistrust
also stymies strategy and makes it harder to sustain the kind of long-term
European investment in support of state reform across the Islamic world, or the
ability of Europeans to offer burgeoning populations either an alternative to
the extremist narrative, or to seeking sanctuary in Europe. Muslim society is
in many ways as diverse as Western society and many of the people fleeing the
Middle East to Europe are fleeing what is in effect a civil war within Islam.
The less Europe partners states in the Muslim world the more people will likely
seek to come to Europe.

There are
also geopolitical implications within Europe itself. The survey reveals the
extent of the divide that exists between Western Europe and much of the rest of
Europe over this issue. Mass, irregular immigration over the past three years
into Europe has in effect destroyed Schengenland.
It also has laid bare enormous divisions within the EU, as many member-states simply
refuse to share the burdens Germany, Greece and Italy are having to bear. The failure of Brussels to deal with the
influx has effectively stopped Project
Europe in its tracks.

However, it
is perhaps at the popular-political level where the damage to European security
and stability might be most telling. Any regular reader of this blog will know
I have long had my concerns about a liberal European elite who for years pretended
there was no link between mass immigration from socially-conservative
countries, Muslim and non-Muslim, and threats to European social cohesion. This
survey seems to reveal is that a majority of European citizens have finally
lost faith in the willingness, and indeed the ability, of liberal elites to act
in what they see as the citizen-interest over this issue. Rightly or wrongly, a
large number of Europeans think the people they elect are lost in a globalist
fantasy which the former suspect leads the latter to place a higher priority on
the well-being of the ‘other’…except when it is election time. Whatever the cause there is now a yawning
political and policy gap between elites and huge numbers of European citizens. And,
it is precisely into that gap that the populists have stepped.

But, here’s
the rub; the survey does not show the distinction between those with legitimate
concerns about the threat posed by mass immigration to their security, those
worried by cultural friction that includes Islam but is not exclusively focused
on it, and plain old-fashioned Islamophobia. One only has to look at Europe’s
recent past to see how quickly hatred is spawned, as evidenced by the age old anti-Semitism
that sadly seems again to be raising its very ugly head.

At the start
of this blog I suggested that there are two places politicians should never
take liberal democracies; Nostalgia and Utopia. In the absence of any policy grip the debate
is too often driven on the political Right by Nostalgist populists who imply
that only a firm policy on mass migration can return Europe to a mono-cultural past.
Those days are gone. The political Left is locked into a Utopian, multicultural
fantasy, partly in the belief mass migration can help to destroy the patriotism/nationalism
they despise. Far from ending the politics of identity their vacuous internationalist
creed, which is pretty much confined to European intellectuals and their fellow
travellers, they are fuelling it.

In such
circumstances policy must be both realistic and balanced and built on the
simple premise we start from where we are. Neither Nostalgists nor Utopians offer
any way forward. What is needed is a return to sound policy and a sense of
proportion if elites are to vitally regain the trust of their own peoples over Muslim,
or indeed all forms of mass immigration. Indeed, it is precisely the sense such
migration is out of control, that the sheer scale is a threat in and of itself,
and that there is no system in place to either deal with it, or protect
citizens from the undoubted dark side of it, that is fuelling mistrust.

Europe
certainly does face a security threat from uncontrolled migration, as I wrote a
couple of years ago in Lebanon on the
Rhine. However, when researching my latest book The New Geopolitics of Terror: Demons and Dragons (Routledge 2017),
which is of course brilliant and very reasonably-priced (especially the Kindle
version), the hard reality was plain to see; Europe must come to terms with
high-levels of immigration. In such circumstances policy, and it is the absence
of a meaningful policy that is exacerbating the challenge, demands that
Europe’s leaders collectively develop systems that can better integrate
incomers into European society, and far better control and regulate migration,
be it from Muslim countries or elsewhere. Laissez-faire multiculturalism simply
does not work.

Regular readers of this blog know how I despise political correctness because of its
toxic effect on hard analysis and the formation of policy. Equally, I also
despise racism, discrimination and prejudice because it destroys individuals
and ignores their strengths. To my mind this survey does not suggest for a
moment that all Europeans are racists or all Muslims are terrorists. However,
it does highlight the strategic challenge Europe faces over mass Muslim
migration, and how acutely sensitive much of Europe has again become to Islam.
History runs deep in all of us.

One final
thought; in my travels around the world, occasionally to some of the world’s
most dangerous places, the one true division I have come to see, and one in
which I really do still believe in, is the one between good people and bad
people, and, oh yes, idiots.

One reason why
I bother to write these blogs is to avoid becoming a citizen of either
Nostalgia or Utopia.

Friday, 10 February 2017

Alphen, Netherlands, 10
February. ‘Offset’; the maintenance of strategic
comparative advantage by maximising one’s own strengths, and successfully exploiting
the weaknesses of adversaries and enemies. At present I am drafting a major,
high-level GLOBSEC report on ‘adapting’ NATO to meet the risks, challenges and threats
of the twenty-first century. In many ways ‘Adaptation’ is NATO’s own offset
strategy, with innovation the key. As I draft the report I am struck by the
extent and the pace of the Innovation Race in which the Alliance must now
engaged.

In the past NATO and its nations
have tended to enjoy the ‘luxury’ of being able to confront threats in
isolation. NATO’s essential challenge today is that it must deter and defend
successfully against a range of threats across the conflict spectrum, and at
one and the same time. Indeed, whilst there might be no formal alliance between
illiberal states and the likes of Al Qaeda and Islamic State, there is clearly
a series of very dangerous linkages.

There are also a range of
adversarial states and non-state actors, including China and Russia that are
seeking to ‘offset’ NATO. At the higher-end of the conflict spectrum strategies
range from the rapid development and modernisation of nuclear weapons, long-strike
missiles and anti-space capabilities, allied to new anti-ship and anti-air
military systems, cyber warfare, enhanced electronic warfare and Special Forces.
At the medium to lower end of the spectrum assets, capabilities and strategies
range from the use of cyber to disrupt society, including denial of service
attacks on critical infrastructure, the use of the internet to further
destabilise the already fragile social cohesion of rapidly changing Western societies,
leavened by the extensive use of ‘fake news’ to polarise opinion in Western
societies. Terror attacks seek to leverage strategic influence by cowering already
sensitised populations into fatalistic submission.

The first and main offset threat to
NATO is Russia’s growing reliance on a mix of nuclear weapons and hybrid
warfare to offset what Moscow sees as NATO’s on-paper conventional military
superiority. The second offset threat is that posed by Al Qaeda and Islamic
State to Allied societies and with it the danger that terrorism will over time erode
the protection of the home base, and profoundly weaken the ability of the
Alliance to project security as people lose faith in the ability of governments
to secure and defend them. However, there is a third offset threat which
ironically could be posed by America’s own offset strategy. Technology drives
and shapes policy and strategy often as much as it is shaped by them. There is now
a very real danger that technologically-driven US ‘milstrat’ will advance so
far ahead of allies that military interoperability, and in time political
cohesion, will become impossible to maintain.

The US is looking to develop a
range of capabilities and capacities that will widen the already significant
chasm between US forces and those of its European Allies. At the high-end of
the conflict spectrum such developments include new nuclear and space-based
capabilities, advanced sensors, extreme range stand-off weapons and
communication systems, the development of advanced missile defence, as well as
offensive and defensive cyber capabilities.

The US is also looking further
out to the future of warfare by seeking to decisively exploit new technologies
by looking into areas such as robotics, system autonomy, miniaturisation, and
big data. This strategy includes the development of a more innovative
relationship between the Pentagon and US industry to better exploit the entire
national supply chain (not simply the defence supply chain). US defence
innovation also seeks to establish a form of entrepreneurial security and
defence procurement that will lock both innovation and competition into the
provision of the future US joint force. Europe? Whilst the British are doing some
work in these areas London is investing nothing like the level of political and
real capital currently being invested by the Americans. The rest of austerity Europe
is being left far, far behind in the innovation arms race.

NATO Adaptation must be part of
the innovation Race. Indeed, Adaptation will only lead to a reinvigorated Alliance
deterrence and defence posture if it is part of a sustained and systematic
Allied strategy to balance protection and projection. Today, there is a very
real danger that efforts by adversaries and enemies to offset US strengths will
render an already far weaker and more vulnerable Europe, super-vulnerable to
attack. That, to say the least, would be a strategic paradox, if not a little
unfortunate.

NATO’s Innovation Race is not dissimilar
to the naval arms race that took place between Britain and Imperial Germany
between 1898 and 1914, with consequences that could be just as profound, and just
as dangerous. The bottom-line is this; if the Alliance is to successfully ‘Adapt’
to the twenty-first century’s hyper-complex strategic environment America’s
allies will need to smart up, not force America to dumb down.

Tuesday, 7 February 2017

“Heroes who shed their blood and lost
their lives! You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore
rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and Mehmets to us
where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who
sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now
lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land
they have become our sons as well.”

President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Alphen,
Netherlands. 7 February. How should Europe deal with a changing Turkey? I say ‘Europe’,
on matters strategic Europe is increasingly coming to mean a mix of great
powers and great institutions acting in as much unison as they can generate
over any one issue, at any one time. One of the many issues faced by what is
now a hard liberal European establishment is how to deal with legitimised
illiberal regimes that are important to Europe. The tendency of late has been
for Europe to become a whining city on a molehill; offering judgement without
influence. This tendency is particularly evident in the ‘hold one’s nose’ way
European leaders deal with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. Consequently, Europe is in danger of losing
Turkey for the first time since President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk aligned his
secular regime with the European West a century ago.

The need for a
new Turkey policy is pressing. In a forthcoming referendum it is likely more
power will be ‘granted’ to the presidency. If so President Erdogan’s Turkey
First policy will be bolstered, and Europe’s Turkey dilemma will become even
more acute. Therefore, like it or not, in this new age of Realpolitik President Erdogan is vital to the security and
stability of Europe and Europeans must recognise that. Unfortunately, Europe’s
strategic partnership with Ankara looks ever more like a fractious frozen
alliance.

Writing my
latest book The New Geopolitics of
Terror: Demons and Dragons (Routledge 2017), which is of course brilliant
and very reasonably-priced, one theme ran through the research; the vital
importance of Turkey to the security and stability of Europe, the Middle East,
and much of Western Asia. Turkey is also a vital member of NATO, and Ankara’s
co-operation remains critical if Europe is not to see a large portion of the 3
million refugees Turkey currently hosts moving rapidly towards Schengenland.

Why is Europe
losing Turkey? Europe’s relationship with Turkey is certainly deteriorating. Last
week tensions flared with Greece over disputed islands and, of course, the
future of Turkish Cyprus remains a constant source of friction between the EU
and Turkey. However, it is Turkey’s burgeoning
Realpolitik relationship with Russia that
is of great concern to many in Europe.

Turkey First
also reflects both Erdogan’s ambitions for and concerns about his country at a
time or regional and global flux. Last week, in a sign of the shifting power
balance, both Germany’s Merkel and Britain’s May went to Ankara, partly to
reassure President Erdogan, partly to influence him. My sources tell me May’s
visit was a success, Merkel’s visit less so. Put simply, President Erdogan’s Turkey First
policy reflects his feeling of abandonment, and at times betrayal by the West over
Syria. Above all, President Erdogan feels deeply offended by what he saw as European
fence-sitting during the failed July 2016 military coup attempt. And yet, whilst
Europe is in danger of losing Turkey it has not as yet lost Turkey. It is clear
Ankara is of a similar view. For example, Ankara’s attitude within NATO has
been as constructive as at any time over recent years. In other words, there is
still much to play for.

Much of Europe’s
Turkish problem is, as so often, in Europe. Europeans tend to think that once a
country is a member of a Western-leaning institution there is no need for policy
towards it. The Obama administration had no policy worthy of the name towards
Turkey, whilst a Europe embroiled in its endless self-obsession simply took came
to take Turkey for granted. Now, President Erdogan is reminding Europeans just
how mistaken such indifference is. Henceforth, like Europe’s relationship with
President Trump, its relationship with President Erdogan is also likely to become
far more transactional in nature. This
is particularly so now that the fantasy/pretence of forever in the future Turkish
EU membership has been by and large buried.

What would a
Turkey policy look like? It would certainly need to include more trade access,
more development aid, and more free movement of Turks into the EU. Indeed, it will
be interesting to see the impact and implications of the eventual Brexit deal
for Turkey. However, the crux of Turkey’s relationship with Europe will pivot
on Turkey’s own strategic neighbourhood. It is this neighbourhood which presents
both the need for, and challenge to, a new European policy towards Turkey.

In alliances policy,
strategy, and structure must be constantly re-aligned. Most of that process is
enacted through incremental adjustments over time. However, at times hard reality
must be confronted, not finessed away, and it is precisely hard reality
Europeans find so hard to either confront or manage. For Turkey that means a
Europe that finally takes a position on the status of the Kurds. Ankara is
deeply concerned that the instrumentalisation by the West of the Kurds in the
struggle against Islamic State implies some future pay-off for the Kurds in
their aspirations for a state that would straddle much of what is today
northern Iraq and Syria, and which would border Turkey. Turkey would never
accept the existence of such a state given the implications for its own eastern
provinces.

The profound challenge
for European policy-makers is thus; how can President Erdogan be reassured
about Western policy towards the Kurds without at the same time (once again) abandoning
the Kurds? Now, I am too much the historian to pretend there are easy solutions
to what is an acute policy and strategy conundrum. However, having no policy at
all on what is a key issue for a key ally at a key moment is also no option. Therefore,
if Turkey is to be convinced that continued investment in its alliances and partnerships
with the West is worth it then the West, Europe in particular, will need to engage
on this most sensitive of issues.

The Trump
Administration may well take a purely Realpolitik
position on this issue if Ankara supports US attacks on Islamic State. That
would leave a dangerous policy vacuum. Particularly so, given that beyond
gestures Europe has by and large retreated from any meaningful engagement in
Turkey’s strategic neighbourhood. Therefore, if Europeans really want themselves
and their sacred values to be taken seriously it is Europe (with Britain) which
should now embark on the diplomatic challenge of assisting Turks and Kurds
alike in the search for an enduring political settlement. The Turkish-Kurdish
relationship is probably as important to regional peace and stability as the
Israeli-Palestinian relationship. However, if, as usual, Europe bottles the
challenge, issues yet more meaningless declarations or offers yet more inactive
joint actions, then Turkey First could well come in time to mean Europe last.

To understand the
strategic importance of Turkey to Europe, just look at a map. This importance
was reinforced in my mind a few years ago in Ankara when as Acting Head of
Delegation I had the honour to formally lay a wreath at the memorial tomb of
President Ataturk. A few days later I was standing in General Ataturk’s World
War One command position high above ANZAC Cove and Suvla Bay, where Allied
troops landed in 1915, and from which they were bloodily evicted. History was,
as ever, as eloquent about the present as it was about the past.

Turkey is a
European power and should be treated as such. It is my firm belief that the
best future for Turkey remains in a strong alliance with its Western partners.
However, such alliance is also in the interests the West, particularly Europe.
Therefore, Europe must stop seeing Turkey as a frozen alliance, and work far
harder to convince President Erdogan that it is both friend and ally.

To do that Europeans
must accord the same respect to Turkey as President Ataturk accorded other Europeans.

Thursday, 2 February 2017

“The law of the
strong is the determining factor in statecraft….the most effective form of
government is one that incorporates the most powerful forces within the state”.

Ludwig von Rochau

Alphen, Netherlands. 2 February. Welcome
back to the new age of Realpolitik and the dark arts of statecraft. Sad then
that so much of British and wider European academia seems to be in wilful
denial. Yesterday, I received a round-robin email from a Cambridge academic
that began with the self-righteous sentence: “Dear All, I think everybody is
agreed that Donald Trump is a threat to NATO, the EU and the western liberal
order generally”. Now, as an Oxford man I suppose I could make some cheap shot
about Cambridge academics. Sadly, politically correct, leftist political dogma
presented as fact is too often what passes for evidence-free analysis across
too much of British academia these days. There are two questions yesterday’s
missive poses. Firstly, what is driving the retreat from strategic reason in
Europe? Secondly, how best to influence a President Trump who remains vital to
the security, defence, and stability of Europe?

Ultra-Liberal Democracy-Denying
Hysteria Syndrome has again been in full flow this past week in Britain. This
time the PC ‘let me off the real world’ brigade are protesting about the planned
state visit by President Trump to Britain. Cheered on by media ‘luvvies’ at the
BBC much has been made of an online petition that has drawn some two million
signatures calling for the planned Trump visit to be cancelled. And yet, and
not untypically, the BBC made very little of yesterday’s YouGov poll that
showed 49% of those asked want President Trump to visit Britain, against 36%
who do not.

Why the self-righteous kerfuffle?
There is no question that the roll-out of President Trump’s Executive Order temporarily
curtailing entry to the United States of citizens from seven countries in the
Middle East has been handled with catastrophic cack-handedness. If there is a
criticism to be made of the Order it is that President Trump is playing
politics with strategy. In 2011 President Obama signed a similar order after it
emerged that US vetting procedures were inadequate. In other words, the need to
establish systems to protect the American people from terrorists posing as
refugees are already in place. This White House Order is merely to pander to
President Trump’s electoral base.

What is behind much of the
protest has nothing actually to do with the Order itself. There is a
paradoxically intolerant ‘ultra-liberal’ caste that refuses to accept a
fundamental principle of democracy; that one accepts the legitimacy of a vote
even if one profoundly disagrees with it. For the past twenty years or so this
caste and their beloved ‘isms’ has been in the ascendancy, and by and large ridden
roughshod over the concerns of millions of people about globalisation,
mass-immigration et al. Brexit and President Trump are but two examples of
their decline and they are determined to fight it by whatever means they can.

However, the more important question
now is how best to influence the rough-edged but democratically-legitimate
President Trump. In fact, the two questions come together at this point. President
Trump himself reflects the decline of the western liberal order, a retreat that
has been hastened by Europe’s retreat into strategic la la land. The rise of China
and the re-emergence of President Putin’s Russia now sees the harsh Realpolitik
of the new East matched by the business Realpolitik of President Trump, with
powerless Europeans lost in an ocean-wide abyss of irrelevance in between.

This irrelevance was evident in President
Tusk’s absurd suggestion yesterday that President Trump’s America, the very
country that guarantees his freedom to speak nonsense, is now such a threat to ‘Europe’
that it ranks alongside China and Russia. Of course, the likes of presidents
Trump, Erdogan, Putin, and quite possibly in time President Xi, are going to do
deals over the heads of Europeans. Europeans have brought such impotence upon
themselves by retreating these past decades into empty institutionalism and by refusing
to heed the historic lessons of power and influence.

The one European leader who seems
to understand this is British Prime Minister Theresa May. She was absolutely
right to a) go to Washington quickly; and b) invite President Trump to Britain for
a state visit. Right now, given Brexit, Britain needs the US as much as at any
time since 1940. Europe does too. And yes, there will be a price. That is
Realpolitik, der! Therefore, rather concentrate on finding new and novel ways to
gratuitously offend President Trump Europeans should instead concentrate on how
best to constructively influence him. That means at the very least Europeans coming
down from their whining city on a molehill and re-learning the arts, sometimes
dark arts, of statecraft.

Here’s the twist. My instincts
are in some ways those of the ultra-liberals. However, I am a pragmatic
liberal, in line with most of the 49% of Britons who want President Trump to
visit Britain. I also have a profound understanding of history, power and
statecraft, which the ultra-liberals seems to wilfully ignore. Therefore, if I
want my liberal values to eventually prevail in this hyper-competitive world I recognise
I need the power and the argument to convince both friends and adversaries. The
argument of weakness, however loud, indignant and obnoxious, is no argument at
all.

Maybe one day a Cambridge
academic might learn…but then again it is Cambridge.

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.